Mega-Litter Is Road Trip Hazard

Litterbugs bug me. I cannot understand why anyone would drop trash on the ground or toss it out of the car rather than ferry it to the nearest litter basket, garbage can or, when it's the appropriate material, to a recycling container. But small roadside discards are nothing compared with large items inadvertently lost off vehicles. At worst, they can be read hazards, annoying traffic blockers or simply unsightly objects that diminish the experience of a road trip. And with gas topping $3 a gallon, wouldn't it be nice if we could at least see beauty while we're on the highway?

But a piece in today's New York Times points to the genuine hazard of mega-litter. During a single California rush hour, a rocking chair on eastbound Interstate 580 near Pleasanton brought traffic to a near-standstill, a trampoline blocked to southbound lanes of I-680 near Walnut Creek, and bagged loaves of sourdough bread blocked U.S. 101 near Petaluma. A plastic sink, mattresses, aluminum ladders, sofas, buckets and "the occasional spilled Napa County grapes thrown in" were among California's 140,000 cubic yards of annual road debris, enough to fill 8,750 garbage trucks, which would extend for 45 miles, according to the report.

The Times article continued, "The nature of road debris has changed, and litter anthropologists are now studying the phenomenon. Where 'deliberate' litter used to reign — those blithely tossed fast-food wrappers and the like — 'unintentional' or 'negligent' litter from poorly secured loads is making its presence felt.

"While by no means unique to California, pickup trucks and other vehicles piled high with improperly secured loads are a fact of life here," according to the paper, which also reported that 155 people died in the state in the last two years after accidents involving objects on highways, and states are beginning to address the issue. "Next week, a murder trial is set to begin in the death of a Los Angeles county deputy sheriff who was killed when he swerved to avoid a stolen stove that had fallen from a Long Beach man’s truck," the Times reported. That was just one out of many, but it happened to be fatal and the negligent driver was found. According to the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety, 25,000 accidents a year in North America are caused by litter that is dumped by motorists or falls out of vehicles.

California, like other states, has laws on the books imposing fines on drivers " if anything other than feathers from live birds or water should escape. (In Nebraska, the exception is corn stalks; in Kentucky, coal.)" Following an accident in Washington State, in which 24-year-old Maria Federici was blinded and disfigured when a piece of a shelving unit flew off a trailer and crashed through her windshield, Maria's Law was passed, raising the penalty for an unsecured load from a traffic citation carrying a $194 fine to gross misdemeanor status with a maximum penalty of one year in jail and a $5,000 fine if someone is injured. That doesn't seem like much when weighed against causing loss of sight, disfigurement or death, but it's a step in the right direction.

Last summer, on I-70 between between Idaho Springs and Bergen Park, my husband and I came up behind a van with a piece of plywood tied to the top. the closer we got, the more the plywood flapped. My husband, usually a speed-limit driver, gunned the car and passed the van. Not 15 seconds later did we see, in the rearview mirror, the plywood sailing off the van. Along CO 93, a sign at a waste-transfer station warns that drivers with "unsecured loads" face double dumping fees. But these laws, like so many others, are rarely enforced. California spends $55 million a year to remove roadside litter, but it remains a problem.

Deliberate litter annoys me and befouls the landscape, but so far, we have avoided death or disfigurement due to other drivers' negligence. Now, along with dufus drivers gabbing on their cell phones or eating banquet-size meals and slurping super-sized drinks while they're driving, and of course the occasional DUI-citation candidate, we've got to worry about dangers mega-litter on the road.